| Laurens, Iowa June 14th to June 18th After St. Louis, we headed to Laurens, Iowa, home to James' grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Sarah Chadwick and the Winklers welcomed us with open arms and we had a great time, mostly spent talking with one another, eating a lot of great food, and enjoying the beautiful scenery all around us. |
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| The Rock Business James' cousins, David and Ben, worked a business of their own with Luke, one of their friends. They collected rocks from farmers in the area, polished them up, loaded them in a semi, and then took them down to Des Moines and put them up for sale. This is the second summer they've done this and it has been fairly successful. David even set up a website for the business, which you can see here. Anyway, we took a trip out to Luke's home to see some of these rocks for ourselves. It was all pretty impressive, at least to us. You think you could do this job, carting around rocks like this? |
| Below: James and his grandma |
| The night we arrived in Laurens, they picked up what Dave called "a thousand dollar rock." Right: We posed with the big one. Below: James acts like he can actually lift the thing. |
| Below: James and some of his favorite rocks. |
| Left: This is the semi the boys rent for their business. Can you believe they actually fill this thing up with rocks and then truck them down to Des Moines? They said they can't hardly keep the good ones in stock, either...So if you want some rocks for landscaping, you know where to go! |
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| Laurens is a town of about 1500 people in the middle of Northern Iowa. It's small and very pictaresque. Everywhere we went, people knew James' family and were happy to talk to us about our travels. Clockwise from top: The apartment building where James' grandmother lives. The cornfield behind the apartment building. One of the Laurens signs. James at the other Laurens sign. Aunt Sarah standing in the doorway of their office--you can see Don's sign to the right of the door. |
| Uncle Don and James, standing in Don's office |
| Below: This house is the one James' dad grew up in. His grandmother lived here until about 15 years ago. |
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| The Rock Warriors themselves: Ben, David, and Luke, out by "the pit." |
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| Pocahontas Believe it or not,there's a town in the middle of Iowa named after a Native American who lived in Virginia when this country was first being colonized. Don't ask us why because we don't know, nor, it seems, does anyone else. But for whatever reason, this town has erected this giant tribute, teepee and all, just one town over from Laurens. |
| Kristen was a little more "domestic" than usual while at the cabin. Here she's showing off the awesome roasted ranch potatoes she made for dinner one night. |
| A Man And His Boat: James had a good time boating around the lake. |
| This group of pictures, including the one above, were all taken during our walk around the lake. The picture to the left is of an area where James and family sometimes hunt for pheasant. Other pictures are just different views of the lake, from ground level and from on top of the hill you'll see in some of the pictures (like the one above). We realize there's a lot of pictures of the lake, but every view demanded attention. |
| Home Sweet Home Our tent, which we set up at the pit, just for practice, is the only place we can really lay claim to as "home" this summer. |
| After spending 2 nights with James' grandmother, we stayed 2 nights at "the pit," a private lake owned by James' Aunt Sarah and Uncle Don. The picture on the left was taken our 2nd day in Laurens, the day before we actually stayed out at the lake. The big hill in the background is actually a pile of gravel, which the state uses periodically for roads and whatnot. The lake was actually a gravel pit, hence the nickname. Now it's fishable and even swimmable. |
| James in front of the cabin at the lake. The rock he's sitting on was brought there by David and crew. |
| This picture of James in silhouette is pretty neat, but would be better if you could see his head... |
| The dock and lake by day |
| Aunt Sarah, Grandma Chadwick, and James |